(It seems like this campus only has one form of discipline for GLOs)
Sigma Nu becomes third fraternity banned at ULL this school year
By PATRICK COURREGES
pcourreges@theadvocate.com
Acadiana bureau
LAFAYETTE -- The University of Louisiana at Lafayette has shut down the campus chapter of the Sigma Nu fraternity until 2008 -- making it the third fraternity banned from campus this school year.
The announcement of the suspension of the fraternity came Friday after weeks of investigation into an alleged mid-December hazing incident.
ULL spokeswoman Julie Simon-Dronet said Friday that investigators concluded that hazing incidents occurred at the fraternity, and that students also were continually violating university policies meant to safeguard against hazing.
One of the rules broken dealt with restrictions on the serving of alcohol, she said.
"We have a policy that you have to get request advance permission when you're going to serve alcohol at a function," Dronet said.
She said that, in several cases, the Sigma Nu chapter allegedly served alcohol at functions without permission.
Investigators also alleged that the fraternity broke rules prohibiting having guests or functions at fraternity houses between midnight and 7 a.m. any day of the week, Dronet said.
"That policy was violated repeatedly, we've learned," she said.
Dronet said officials with the national Sigma Nu fraternity conducted their own investigation, working cooperatively with the university.
The national Sigma Nu office suggested the three-year ban, and the university concurred with the national office's findings and suggested corrective action, Dronet said.
She said that the sort of allegation that came before investigators were "not the norm for Sigma Nu" on ULL's campus.
"Sigma Nu does not have a history of that," Dronet said. "Sigma Nu was founded on anti-hazing."
The mid-December 2004 allegations of hazing at Sigma Nu came within days of the early December announcement that the ULL chapter of Phi Kappa Theta was to be shut down for a year.
The investigation of the November Phi Kappa Theta incident showed pledges had been asked by fraternity members to "exercise" in the early morning hours, and one of the pledges suffered an asthma attack.
In March 2004, ULL banned the Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter for two years, after investigation of a 2003 allegation that pledges had been hosed down with water and deprived of sleep.
Dronet said none of the 37 active Sigma Nu members nor the 12 pledges were living in the fraternity house.
She said the fraternity will have to apply for reinstatement at the end of its suspension.
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